Leveraging Technology to Enhance Customer Experience

Customers and Technology

Customers are not afraid to use technology to improve their experience: The majority of U.S. shoppers, 60 percent, combine online and in-store sources before making a purchase. Bottom line here is that consumers want more information. Whether online or in-store, they expect to get the details down to product descriptions, reviews, or pricing that makes for a seamless process that gives them information and answers to their questions before making a purchase.

Thanks to today's 24/7 information flow shoppers are leveraging technology to plot their own tactics for finding the best deals, avoid shopping at peak busy times, and jettison their customer experiences into something that is overall faster, more economic, and just better.

To accomplish this, the majority of consumers now mix the online and in-store experience to shape their shopping experience. For instance, consumers looking for the latest version of their favorite tech gadget or concert tickets no longer have to wait for the supplier to reorder the product. They can turn to e-commerce sources to fulfill their order, and vice-versa. This type of shopper, a phy-gital shopper, can access digital information from a smartphone or tablet while standing in their brick-and-mortar store.

For retailers in pursuit of their customers, technology is the pace setter, and the technologies that make this possible, such as mobile devices, analytics, and cloud apps, add a new dimension to the old adage of supply-meets-demand: Demand now discovers supply.

Consumers who are more than comfortable leveraging technology to optimize their shopping experience continuously challenge retailers to meet their specific expectations. To better understand the sophistication shoppers look for in a retailer, Mindtree conducted a global survey with 4,000 respondents to decode this new age shopper and understand their preferred features online and in-store. The findings revealed key themes and invaluable statistics for retailers looking to decode their customers' expectations.

Anil Venkat, marketing head, retail, CPG and manufacturing vertical at Mindtree, has more than a decade of experience working in marketing for B2B companies. At Mindtree, his focus on retail, CPG and manufacturing has incubated integrated sales campaigns. He has been a marketing leader with Infosys in the past, apart from being a supply chain consultant.